Monsoon Dream / Night's Guest by David Chorlton

Monsoon Dream

A lifetime’s indiscretions
well up inside a cloud. Dry midnight.
It’s a long walk down the wash
in the company of coyotes
while the desert sighs
with the relief rocks feel

when the light no longer burns. Pack up
your troubles in your old kit bag,
the rain has a mind of its own.
Is anyone awake? Can anybody hear

the clouds discuss
whether tonight is the time
to open up and spill old memories?
It looks so calm in Heaven tonight, stars

waltzing with self doubt, three-quarter time
on the back lawn where
the rabbits come to be alone and nibble
at the hours as they pass through
the dark. Does the mountain’s heart rate

slow when it sleeps? Past mistakes
rumble in the distance. Is it time,
is rainfall imminent
and will secret files pour down? Not tonight.

No indictments
will be issued by
the thirsty moon.




Night’s Guest

A coyote at the gate last night
stopped to ask the way
to where time turns into rain, but nobody
was there to answer
except the moon

which lit the path that makes its slow way down
to the pond where water sleeps
while all the sky’s awake.
Night flights, headlamps on the interstate,
storms, are wandering

lost, without a destination, without
gods to decide
where fate should strike
and send a sudden downpour.
He found a few minutes

to rest in and to wait for a moist scent.
He loosened up his limbs,
saw a flash of lightning far,
far in the distance and
began to flow toward it.

David Chorlton is a longtime Phoenix resident who has not been used to complaining about the summer heat. This year the heat is beyond complaints, but he tries to look after the local birds and keep water available. This year saw the publication of a nonfiction book, "The Long White Glove," about the 1960s wrongful conviction of an Austrian family member.